I travel a ton for business. One good thing is it allows me to encounter countless experiences as a customer. Last week, I found myself in the Northeast. The flight landed late so I decided to stay at a hotel right next to the airport. Normally I would just grab an UBER or a taxi, but this hotel went out of its way to proactively send me an email stating they have a free shuttle and would be happy to pick me up curbside. Nice touch, I thought.
When I landed, I hit the link they provided and sure enough, by the time I meandered outside, I saw the courtesy van along with an extremely friendly and customer focused driver. He introduced himself, grabbed my bags and held the door open as I climbed in. On the short drive over, he made sure I was comfortable, offered me a bottled water and asked what else I needed. Upon arrival, he personally walked me to the front desk and announced, “Mr. Juffre has arrived and is ready to be checked in.”
At this point, if I’d been asked to rate my experience so far, it would have been an easy 10/10! And then I saw it … a simple sign which read: ‘We’d love to earn a ‘10’ for your stay, ask us how.’ Man, what a punch to the gut. Here this hotel was doing so many things right and some genius in management decided to try to put their thumb on the scale. If customers or patients are happy, they are happy. If they are not, they are not.
Way too many organizations try to game the score as opposed to looking for legitimate ways to improve it. As we enter 2019, work with your teams to win the game of patient care vs. simply gaming it!
